Everyone knows the legend of the Irontooth clans and mech fu. The tribes were born of the union of monks and rough-and-tumble barbarians, and the first group brought their knowledge of the martial arts and sparring matches. With the rise of mechs, they learned to use similar techniques with their steam-driven and clockwork wonders. But lesser known is a smaller but similarly monastic tradition. Although they go by many names, outsiders know them only as soulknives. And like their brethren monks, they too have learned to harness their unique talents in combination with mechs. Like their predecessor soulknives, this group goes by many names depending on the sensei master, but the name heard most often is "Ironsoul Elite."

In the L'Arile Nation their exists a similar order of gifted mech jockeys. They are usually known as the Oaksoul Elite, or aelorithol, who channel their own souls through their still-living tree-mechs, amplifying it in ways most Ironsoul Elite never manage. Nonetheless, these two separate traditions are mostly identical.

Class Features The following are class features of the Ironsoul Elite prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An ironsoul elite gains no new proficiencies with any weapons, armor, or shields.
Empower Weapons: A first level the ironsoul elite knows how to combine his talent with shaping his mind blade and charging weapons to maximum potential within a mech. Rather than manifesting a mind blade, you may grant one weapon on a mech you pilot certain benefits of you mind blade:
- enhancement bonus and magic weapon options
- counts as your mind blade for any feats you possess, such as weapon focus (mind blade)
- may be used to deliver a psychic strike
You may use shape mind blade to affect more than one weapon, but you take the standard penalty to your effective enhancement bonus. You may not use this ability and manifest a normal mind blade at the same time (nor may you affect two mechs at the same time, since you must be piloting the mech to use this ability). If you select this option, you do not get Mech Mind Blade. This version is normally favored by Oaksoul Elites, although either option is open.
Mech Mind Blade: When piloting a mech, you may manifest your mind blade as a weapon for your mech. This works in all ways as your normal mind blade, but deals damage as a weapon appropriate for the size of your mech. If you select this option, you do not gain Empower Weapons. This version is normally favored by true Ironsoul Elites, although either option is open.
Enhanced Mind Blade: Levels of Ironsoul Elite count as levels of soulknife for determining your mind blade's enhancement bonus and magic weapon options.
Bonus Feat: Drawn from the mech jockey base class (see DragonMech).
Psychic Strike: As soulknife.
Mind Over Metal: Your training with psionics and mechs allows you to be devastating to mechs, even though they are mindless. You may deliver a psychic strike to mechs. Psychic Strike may affect non-living or mindless creatures, or creatures immune to mind-affecting effects, but it only deals half damage in this case.
Debilitating Blow: A 5th level the ironsoul elite has mastered the devastating combination of psionics and mecha. By expending your psionic focus when you score a critical hit, you may treat the opponent's critical threshold as one increment more dangerous. Green critical hits are treated as yellow, yellow critical hits are treated as orange, and orange critical hits are treated as red.

Yeah, the being able to psychic strike mindless stuff is one of the key features of the class - very specifically, it still gives you a little something to do outside of mech battles. Think of it as one of a series of attempts to un-nerf the soulknife. Give me a little time, and I think I'll be introducing a new version of the Anklebiter. I never really liked getting equipment as a class feature, so the new version is for soulknives only. They won't be able to create "mind rust grenades," but eventually they'll be able to make mind grenades at will.

Yeah, the being able to psychic strike mindless stuff is one of the key features of the class - very specifically, it still gives you a little something to do outside of mech battles. Think of it as one of a series of attempts to un-nerf the soulknife. Give me a little time, and I think I'll be introducing a new version of the Anklebiter. I never really liked getting equipment as a class feature, so the new version is for soulknives only. They won't be able to create "mind rust grenades," but eventually they'll be able to make mind grenades at will. :twisted:

Ah yes, the BlaineTog soulknife fix. Always a good place to start.

Interesting you should say that. I had been thinking of something similar.

Oh, this is slightly off-topic, but since this is your thread, I might as well tell you I enjoyed the Psionics in Dragonmech thread.

Because, you know, love Psionics and would like to see them done justice in Dragonmech and all that. Especially the Thri-keen (who are one of the races I aspire to play one day).

...Funnily enough, Thri-keen aren't exactly stupid and don't have to be a bunch of primitive savages. I wonder how the mechdoms would regard a race of extremely dexterous people with four arms.

It would definitely be interesting to see a Thri-keen mech pilot.

And half-giant Steamborgs.

[/ramble]

I'm glad to hear my Psionics in Dragonmech thread is popular. I'm quite proud of the results it's achieved. I've never come anywhere close to a 7 page thread before. It's also good to meet another Thri-kreen fan. As for intelligence, they can at least match half-orcs - and that includes Ravel Cracked-Skull. You know, I can't believe I've never thought of a thri-kreen mech jockey before. It'd probably be nice. But I think they'd be particularly well-adapted to mech-boarding. I'm sure they can come up with interesting uses for their insane racial bonus to jump checks.

Howdy Omni!
I'm not sure what use the jump could be other than movement, and as a massive aid in scouting. But I like the idea of a 'kreen attaching itself to a mech, stowing away until it gets whatever information it is looking for. After all, with 4 claws and massively powerful legs, sticking oneself to the side of a mech couldn't be that hard, could it?
(possibly inspired by the Millenium Falcon-Star Destroyer stunt)

_________________The only difference between a mage and a young boy’s pockets is that you’ll find more candy in the child’s
-someone not me

Howdy Omni! I'm not sure what use the jump could be other than movement, and as a massive aid in scouting. But I like the idea of a 'kreen attaching itself to a mech, stowing away until it gets whatever information it is looking for. After all, with 4 claws and massively powerful legs, sticking oneself to the side of a mech couldn't be that hard, could it?(possibly inspired by the Millenium Falcon-Star Destroyer stunt)

Moosh Nailo? That you?

Now there's an idea. See? Another use for jump. I was just thinking in movie action type terms, rather than stuff that definitely can be recreated in d20. Like the fact that people trying to shake off the infantry aren't going to expect them to suddenly leap over the mech. Or at least anywhere so high. Also, most defenses against boarding by infantry is of course going to be located low down, where the infantry will be. Except thri-kreen don't necessarily have to be that low. They can leap over the strongest defenses to the places people would least expect boarders to attack.

Howdy Omni! I'm not sure what use the jump could be other than movement, and as a massive aid in scouting. But I like the idea of a 'kreen attaching itself to a mech, stowing away until it gets whatever information it is looking for. After all, with 4 claws and massively powerful legs, sticking oneself to the side of a mech couldn't be that hard, could it?(possibly inspired by the Millenium Falcon-Star Destroyer stunt)

Moosh Nailo? That you?

Now there's an idea. See? Another use for jump. I was just thinking in movie action type terms, rather than stuff that definitely can be recreated in d20. Like the fact that people trying to shake off the infantry aren't going to expect them to suddenly leap over the mech. Or at least anywhere so high. Also, most defenses against boarding by infantry is of course going to be located low down, where the infantry will be. Except thri-kreen don't necessarily have to be that low. They can leap over the strongest defenses to the places people would least expect boarders to attack.

Lol. If you really wanted to maximize leap, you be really nice to your DM until he lets put play a Thri-keen Dungeonomicon Monk. Aka: THe Megamonk.

It's on the high end of the powerscale, (which can be a lot of fun), but at level 2 their Jump DCs are divided by 2.

At level 10, they're divided by 5.

Remember, this is *Jump* we're talking about. It's awesome to have a character who can roll on a 1 on his jumpcheck at level 10 and still cover a football field's worth of distance, but not really all that game-breaking.

Unless someone made a Final Fantasy Dragoon who does exponential damage when dropping on something while holding a spear.

Jumping over a mech, never thought of that haha. Imagine their faces... More bonus-i to jumping can be found in both Dungeonscape (no doubling of DC for standing long, then standing high jump) and Savage Species (if you still use it) in the form of the Mighty Leaping feat (not the easiest prereqs ever, but a permanent +10 to jump). Mental Leap, from XPH, can give you a +10.
Thats +50 to jump before including ranks or strength, nevermind what you can do with monk DC reduction abilities and whatnot.
Do you think a DM would let you take fly-by attack? Haha.

_________________The only difference between a mage and a young boy’s pockets is that you’ll find more candy in the child’s
-someone not me

Jumping over a mech, never thought of that haha. Imagine their faces... :D More bonus-i to jumping can be found in both Dungeonscape (no doubling of DC for standing long, then standing high jump) and Savage Species (if you still use it) in the form of the Mighty Leaping feat (not the easiest prereqs ever, but a permanent +10 to jump). Mental Leap, from XPH, can give you a +10. Thats +50 to jump before including ranks or strength, nevermind what you can do with monk DC reduction abilities and whatnot. Do you think a DM would let you take fly-by attack? Haha.

Let me do some numbers here...

Let's take a 10th level Thri-keen Dungeonomicon Monk named Trikik, since this will be the most fun.

He has 13 Ranks in Jump.
And a +30 bonus.
And +4 from his speed being 40 feet.
Not only that, he uses his Fighting Styles to max out his speed, gaining another 50 feet, which gives him +20.
Eh, plus another point or two because I strength. I don't even care right now.

That gives him a check of... d20 + 67. So 68-87.
Now multiply that by 5.
That's 340-435 horizontal feet Trikik can cover in a jump, and one quarter of that is his height.
As for vertical jump, the height is the number of feet times four.
So a maxed-out Thri-keen Dungeonomicon Monk can jump more than a hundred vertical feet.
And those numbers get bigger as you stack up synergy and the like.
...

I am so playing one of these at the earliest opportunity. Or springing it on a party.

Oh wow. Thri-kreen megamonks can definitely do a lot. It doesn't get broken until you throw in some warblade levels focusing on Tiger Claw maneuvers. It's from Tome of Battle, basically, you get a bunch of martial arts maneuvers that you kind of use like spells, but they're all for melee. The Tiger Claw school has jump as the school skill, and several maneuvers involve jump checks. Heck, a couple even use your jump check result to set the save DC. I think one of those is a save-or-die. Some things are just meant to be said no to.

Oh wow. Thri-kreen megamonks can definitely do a lot. It doesn't get broken until you throw in some warblade levels focusing on Tiger Claw maneuvers. It's from Tome of Battle, basically, you get a bunch of martial arts maneuvers that you kind of use like spells, but they're all for melee. The Tiger Claw school has jump as the school skill, and several maneuvers involve jump checks. Heck, a couple even use your jump check result to set the save DC. I think one of those is a save-or-die. Some things are just meant to be said no to.

Depends on how you look at it.

It came as a revelation to me when I realized that if everyone's fine with it, it's okay for members of the party to be easily blasting aside challenges and running roughshod around, through, and over anything they come up against.

Not every DnD game has to be so dreadfully serious and epic, and it's so...limiting to have the epic, serious campaign as the standard by which everything must fit into. One of my favorite games involved the halfling eating a mushroom with a red cap and white spots, and growing to Medium size. Permanently.

Oh wow. Thri-kreen megamonks can definitely do a lot. It doesn't get broken until you throw in some warblade levels focusing on Tiger Claw maneuvers. It's from Tome of Battle, basically, you get a bunch of martial arts maneuvers that you kind of use like spells, but they're all for melee. The Tiger Claw school has jump as the school skill, and several maneuvers involve jump checks. Heck, a couple even use your jump check result to set the save DC. I think one of those is a save-or-die. Some things are just meant to be said no to.

Depends on how you look at it.

It came as a revelation to me when I realized that if everyone's fine with it, it's okay for members of the party to be easily blasting aside challenges and running roughshod around, through, and over anything they come up against.

Not every DnD game has to be so dreadfully serious and epic, and it's so...limiting to have the epic, serious campaign as the standard by which everything must fit into. One of my favorite games involved the halfling eating a mushroom with a red cap and white spots, and growing to Medium size. Permanently.

You're right. Funny games are enjoyable too. Hey, I had almost the same thing happen. Our hippie elven druid was looking for psychedelic mushrooms in a friendly NPC mage's garden (sort of - it's easier than explaining the exact truth), and the mage recommended a mushroom with a red cap and white spots. The elf grows to Large. The goblin rogue (me) follows suit, trying to figure out if eating only a part has a partial effect - nope, it counts as a whole mushroom. It wasn't permanent though. Well it is, until you get hit. Or even poked. The mage had fun making us shrink by kicking our shins or poking our bellies. At a later point, he also introduces us to flowers that let us throw fireballs when you hold them - with the warning that you MUST NOT EAT THEM. Anyway, the elf pisses the goblin off when he chucks a fireball over my head to wake me up after a grueling training session (the mage was able to keep us awake for 2 months straight of non-stop practice. We really needed that break). I grab a fire flower and sneak up behind the elf. No, I'm not trying to PvP sneak attack him. I just chuck a fireball between his legs (intentionally missing). We also played around with trying to move the fireballs with our mind or make them come back like a boomerang.

Oh wow. Thri-kreen megamonks can definitely do a lot. It doesn't get broken until you throw in some warblade levels focusing on Tiger Claw maneuvers. It's from Tome of Battle, basically, you get a bunch of martial arts maneuvers that you kind of use like spells, but they're all for melee. The Tiger Claw school has jump as the school skill, and several maneuvers involve jump checks. Heck, a couple even use your jump check result to set the save DC. I think one of those is a save-or-die. Some things are just meant to be said no to.

Depends on how you look at it.

It came as a revelation to me when I realized that if everyone's fine with it, it's okay for members of the party to be easily blasting aside challenges and running roughshod around, through, and over anything they come up against.

Not every DnD game has to be so dreadfully serious and epic, and it's so...limiting to have the epic, serious campaign as the standard by which everything must fit into. One of my favorite games involved the halfling eating a mushroom with a red cap and white spots, and growing to Medium size. Permanently.

You're right. Funny games are enjoyable too. Hey, I had almost the same thing happen. Our hippie elven druid was looking for psychedelic mushrooms in a friendly NPC mage's garden (sort of - it's easier than explaining the exact truth), and the mage recommended a mushroom with a red cap and white spots. The elf grows to Large. The goblin rogue (me) follows suit, trying to figure out if eating only a part has a partial effect - nope, it counts as a whole mushroom. It wasn't permanent though. Well it is, until you get hit. Or even poked. The mage had fun making us shrink by kicking our shins or poking our bellies. At a later point, he also introduces us to flowers that let us throw fireballs when you hold them - with the warning that you MUST NOT EAT THEM. Anyway, the elf pisses the goblin off when he chucks a fireball over my head to wake me up after a grueling training session (the mage was able to keep us awake for 2 months straight of non-stop practice. We really needed that break). I grab a fire flower and sneak up behind the elf. No, I'm not trying to PvP sneak attack him. I just chuck a fireball between his legs (intentionally missing). We also played around with trying to move the fireballs with our mind or make them come back like a boomerang.

It's a shame we can't make insert music on forums, like you can with Myspace.

Cool. You know, I saw someone on another forum insert music. She embedded a hypertext link in a music-themed emoticon. Whatever the site she linked to was, it then opened up Windows Media Player for brief audio clips. She employed it in her farewell fanfic - one thematically appropriate song clip for each chapter. It was amazing. Especially with the revelation that this is her last piece, because her next piece is getting published. I couldn't sort through 150+ pages of responses from over nearly two years to find out the title of her new book. Everyone loved her ending: it revealed a hidden tie-in to her new book series. A little easter egg for her oldest fans.

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